Jordan of the Desert
by Edisgoofy
Summary: Jordan, a kid with Asperger Syndrome has lived an entire twelve years moving through different families while not knowing his real last name or anything about his family until he needs salvation and it comes in two ways.


Jordan of the Desert

He walked alone through those lonely streets, watching the Brooklyn alleys for any assailants… like getting to school would even help him out with avoiding getting his ass kicked. His red hair would probably draw attention, who in their right mind would be walking at 5:30 in the morning inside the most aggressive city on the planet? He kept a watchful eye. He was not in the mood to get mugged by some random New Yorker. Black rings circled his eyes, they were either hereditary or from the sleepless nights held at his drunken sixth adopted parents' apartment. Why does he always end up with someone even worse than the last? The first adoptive parents had nineteen kids, not counting him. The next, for some reason had even _more_. Then the next were neglectful. As time marched on, each one was dirtier and viler than the last. He had to walk himself to school with these two. If they heard some of the things he thought about them they'd probably kill him. Despite their living conditions, he was able to keep himself clean and nicely dressed thanks to some "borrowed" beer money. He watched as someone passed by, making sure that they won't mug him. It occurred to him to look back so the guy's friend couldn't try to sneak up on him. He couldn't drop his guard for even seconds. He made a turn from under the broken street light. He had a long walk until he got to the school. In the city that never sleeps it was rather calm and silent. The faint noise of cars could be heard and even that was quieter than the rustling of garbage. His name was Jordan, he had Asperger Syndrome. His body had a thin frame but he looked nothing like a nerd, his eyes were a bright blue, he had sadness in his eyes and his hair was a bit spiky. He walked along, silently. Surprisingly, he had not found any one ready to rob him in these dark streets. His backpack was a tan color; he carried it with only one strap around his shoulder. He then saw the fence of his school. It had bright posters and other things that were supposed to keep school cheer up. He entered the office; the interior was white and fairly clean. Jordan was only five foot even, he was twelve years old. "How are you doing Jordan?" The brunette lady smiled at him. "You know the same Japanese symbol and sand research, gotta keep up with my knowledge", Jordan replied, his voice surprisingly deep.

He walked through the school and into the cafeteria. He sat down next to another kid with Autism. He began eating, not particularly interested in his peers except for which one will beat him up. He looked over his shoulder at the big eighth grader in a black tee shirt. "Wasn't he supposed to be in prison?" "They let him out a while ago and he got back into school", the kid next to him replied. "_Great_. Thanks, Jamie", Jordan replied. A blonde woman with too much makeup walked over and scowled at Jordan who was steadily eating his breakfast. "You're wearing makeup _again_?" She screeched. Jordan didn't care what Mrs. Lawrence had to say about him. She visibly hated the ignoring he was accomplishing. She pushed a small special needs student off his chair and sat down. "What are you eating, tough one?" "Nothing. I'm finished. He took his tray over to the garbage and threw it away. Every kid that looked at him gave him the look that he was a freak. "Clean the makeup off, Jordan." Mrs. Lawrence said. "I was about to say the same thing to you", Jordan muttered under his breath. Mrs. Lawrence didn't hear him, thank Heaven. She got up and slapped Jordan in the back, "You go have recess with the other kids your age." Jordan had no friends, nobody to talk to. His disorder was a socially crippling one; he just couldn't hang out with other kids. Mrs. Lawrence grabbed him aggressively by the shirt and practically flung him outside. He looked at all the other kids, none of them interesting him in the first place. He passed a couple of girls who smiled at him and blushed, "Hey Jordan." He was blissfully unaware of the flirting. He'd probably gag if he found out. Jordan found a nice tree and sat under it, waiting for the bell to ring. He was grabbed by the hair and thrown onto a wall, a kid with green eyes and a dark blonde Mohawk pinned him up against the wall. "Where's my money, Sandbox Baby?!" "I never owed you money; I haven't seen you in my whole life." "Is that so, Sandy?!" The Mohawk kid punched him hard in the face. Jordan wanted to do something but he just couldn't. Mrs. Lawrence would twist the tale. One of the girls ran up, "Tom, stop it. He's just quiet." "Back away, Sally or you're next!" Tom grabbed Jordan around the neck and began choking him then abruptly stopped and threw him onto the ground and kicked him in one of the legs. Jordan's eyes were wide in terror. "Stop, now!" Sally said. Tom shoved her down and continued onto the sweet pleasure of bullying Jordan. Jordan was crawling away when the one that was in prison approached him and lifted him up. "Han, let me go!" "Sure", Han replied. Han punched Jordan in the face then kicked him hard on the leg, causing Jordan to exclaim in pain. Tom was finished with Sally and started yelling at Han. "Who said you could take _my _freak?!" "He was mine way before he was yours, pipsqueak", Han shouted back. Jordan got up; this wouldn't stop until that stupid bell rang. Han punched Tom in the gut which caused him to collapse. "You so tough now, Pansy?!" Tom punched Han in the groin, "Awww! My—" He used a fowl term. Han punched Tom in the face and snatched him up by the Mohawk. It was like watching two super big carnivorous dinosaurs fight: which ever one wins, he loses. Every kid was hording together to watch the two fight. Han elbowed Tom in the gut and slammed him to the ground. Tom was an idiot to think he could have won. "Now where's that sandbox baby Jordan? The little bastard will learn not to call the cops on me!" Jordan had disappeared into the crowd, he was standing behind a taller kid. The bell rang and every one disbanded to their own classes. Jordan went off to class, scared witless that Han would decide to chase him down the hall and kill him.

Jordan walked into his classroom and sat in the back of the class. Jordan was visibly hurt. Mrs. Lawrence smirked and said, "Nice recess?" She handed him a huge stack of paper at a ninth grade level and said, "Finish this all in _one _hour or you'll be sent to the office." "But this is far above my level, I'm the smartest kid in school but—" "There it is again: you're arrogance. Just for that, you will get ten more pages of work. Maybe that'll teach you a lesson, you little son of a no one", Mrs. Lawrence interrupted. "If I hear any more complaining, you'll be suspended from computer time for the rest of the school year, got that?" She walked away and made an audible comment, "Disrespectful little brat." Jordan started doing his work, it was extremely difficult, he was feeling incredibly saddened. "Mrs. Lawrence, can we please divide this up, don't think I can do it." "You are so damn negative!" Jordan was incredibly angry from that time on. He started scribbling in quick answers, paragraphs, short stories, whatever the damned packet ordered. He was ready to shatter from all of these problems. He had no family, the school was awful then he laid back and rested from all his hard work in the packet. He turned around and said to Mrs. Lawrence, "May I go onto the computer?" "Yes", Mrs. Lawrence said coldly. She secretly found amusement in Jordan's issues, she loved to instigate.

Jordan sat down at the computer. He found a site where he could research his ancestry, maybe he could find other members of his family and finally be accepted. He imagined himself hugging a red headed girl that looked like him and was in fact his sister. He was sure if he just typed in any random last name he'd eventually find someone related to him. He didn't even know his last name, every one just called him "Jordan", "Sandbox Baby" and "Sandy". He searched, looking at many faces but not finding anyone, he sighed and started researching Japanese symbols and letters. He found the symbol for "love", he stared at it for a little bit then decided to leave it. He looked at so many symbols, he was becoming fairly good at reading Japanese. "Are you looking up sand _again_?" Mrs. Lawrence broke the silence. "I don't know what you're talking about, I have Asperger's. Sand is one of my strong interests, if you had the proper training, you'd know that we cling to things." "Sand isn't something that boys your age should be interested in. You should be staring at girls, ogling them. You should be going out, dating and—" "_I'm not interested in that! _How many times do I need to tell you that dating is _not _for me?!" "Well, you'll be telling me when you're twenty 'I have a girlfriend.' or 'I have a wife and a baby/baby on the way!' and be thinking how _stupid _you were. And that's exactly what you are: stupid." "You just called me—" "You're a retarded, negative, eyeliner-wearing disrespectful _brat_! And how many times do I need to tell you to take the makeup off?! _Go to the office right now!_" Jordan got up and said, "Fine, I'll go." He walked silently to the office and sat down in a chair. The brunette said, "Got sent up here, huh? I know… Mrs. Lawrence is a bitch." Jordan looked surprised at the comment, "Ms. Deere, you… know?" "I've always known, you're a special kid… to survive this and get back up on your feet every day makes you a hero. Go now, go leave the school, nobody will stop you. They'll have to get through me", Ms. Deere smiled. Jordan got up, expecting Ms. Deere to stop him or call the principal to haul him back and expel him but she just let him step outside. He looked in the window at Ms. Deere, she was smiling like she had done the right thing. Jordan ran, backpack in haul toward the streets of the city.

He ran and ran until he got tired which was a lot since he had lots of practice running away from pursuing bullies. He now knew that Ms. Deere's smiles weren't just random greetings. She cared about him, she saw something in him. Now he must find a place to sleep, a place to hide and maybe some undocumented family. He climbed up the fire escape all the way to the top of a building. The view was nice, the city was much more active now, he could see cars passing on by and hear all the loud city noises. Brooklyn was so polluted it gave Jordan a headache every day, Jordan found it obvious that he didn't belong there and never did. He called out to the winds: "I need serenity! Let me find family! Send me a message!" The wind whistled, Jordan tried to see the BrooklynBridge. Suddenly, something inside his body, like a separate set of veins started feeling like fire. He gasped and held his sides, after thirty seconds of excruciating pain the burning stopped. He didn't know what that was but—a piece of aged paper blew toward him and he understood. He went to snatch it but the wind picked up and it blew away. He ran after it, letting the wind increase his speed as well, he dropped his backpack and continued after the paper. He was picking up speed very well, he jumped a small gap between buildings and caught it. He opened it and then leaped up in surprise. He put it in his shirt pocket and began his trek back over to his backpack. He took the backpack up and when he turned around he was arrested for running away from school. He was forced to go back to school the next day. He sat in the office talking to Ms. Deere. "Well, now I know how many grains of sand there are on BrightonBeach and the Japanese symbol for 'sand'!" She then seemed to remember something, "Jordan, I've been fired. This is my last day here…" Jordan felt like breaking down into tears, the only person to ever care about him, gone? He got up and started staring at the picture of his ancestor. He walked out into the school yard. He let his guard down. Han punched him in the gut incredibly hard which caused him to throw the picture. "You really think I was goin' to ignore ya, Sandy", Han growled. He grabbed Jordan from the back of his head and slammed his face down into the ground. "You little sandbox baby." He lifted Jordan up and repeatedly punched Jordan in the face until blood came out then smashed him up against a tree. "You think you're so much better than us!" Jordan didn't know where these accusations were coming from but he didn't have time, he was punched in the gut again. This time, he coughed up blood. He fell to the ground, curled up in pain. "Now let's see what you were looking at", Han said as he walked over to the aged paper. Jordan shouted, "Don't touch that, it's old!" Han opened it up, looked at the painting on it then said, "Looks like a fag, just like you." Han stuffed the painting into the garbage and kicked Jordan in the ribs then lifted him up by the shirt and punched him in the eye. Tom seemed to be working for Han now because he was making jokes about Jordan while the licking was occurring. "Jordan, how dare you!" It was Mrs. Lawrence, she had come to help Han. "Fighting on campus." "He was attacking m—" Mrs. Lawrence slapped him in the face and grabbed him by the hair. He pulled away, ripping a length of his hair out and ran. He took the painting out of the garbage. He leaped the fence, he was never coming back here…

Jordan found a sandy beach, it was so peaceful looking out at sea. The majesty of it all was wonderful. Jordan ran his fingers through the sand, picked some of it up and let it pour slowly down back onto the beach, he then looked at the painting of his ancestor. The painting had written in Japanese "Gaara of the Desert". _What an interesting name_, thought Jordan, _does he have some sort of connection to the desert or maybe it's the sand_. He ran his fingers through the sand again. Jordan looked so much like the person in this painting, Gaara that Gaara could've been his father. The black around their eyes, the red hair and even the expressions on their faces. Gaara did look different in many ways, Gaara's features were sharper and a little thinner and he had the Japanese symbol for "love" on his forehead, it was oddly red. Gaara and him both even had spiky hair, Jordan's was different, of course. There seemed to be something special about this picture of Ancestor Gaara… Jordan was surprised by a sudden "Jordan Nameless, you're in big trouble!" It was Mrs. Lawrence, he could tell from the voice and attitude. Mrs. Lawrence ran up to yank him up by the hair and haul him away but, in a blink of an eye, a wall of sand came up and blocked her. "What the—" The sand started cocooning her. Jordan turned around and stuck the painting of Gaara into his shirt pocket. "Mrs. Lawrence—Karina", Jordan said. "You've chose a certain student to pick on for your entire twenty years of being a Special Education teacher." Mrs. Lawrence gasped as the sand cocoon was lifted into the air. "I've decided to end your reign of terror once and for eternity…" The sand covered Mrs. Lawrence's face. "Sand Coffin—" he held out his hand—"Sand Burial!" He closed his hand and Mrs. Lawrence was no more. Dead.


End file.
